SUPPORTERS of Bewdley Museum have slammed Wyre Forest District Council's budget commitment, claiming it has left a question mark over the future of the attraction.

The Health Concern budget for 2004-05, agreed last week, meant managers and supporters of the Load Street-based museum were facing a "no win situation", they claimed.Councillor Stephen Clee, left, vice chairman of the Friends of Bewdley Museum, Penny Griffiths, and Cllr Ron White are concerned about the budget.

Traders have joined the debate - which Health Concern leader, Howard Martin, said was based on an inability to grasp the facts - as fears grow for the long-term future of the museum.

At the heart of the disagreements lay Health Concern's reluctance to put the museum into the "base" part of the budget, where funding would be guaranteed for the next three years.

Support was assured for the next financial year but, from 2005-2007, the money would be continued "subject to the outcome of investigations into alternative funding".

The decision - opposed by the Tories who argued the museum should be supported by the base budget - sparked controversy in the town.

Penny Griffiths, vice-chairman of support group, The Friends of Bewdley Museum, said: "The council is aware that to achieve external funding such as lottery grants, the museum needs to demonstrate that it has more than a 12-month life.

"We believe that this would be best achieved by the council voting the museum funding back into the main budget for three years. The current stalemate leaves us all in a no win situation."

Chairman of the management committee for the museum, Ron White, who, as an independent district councillor, voted for a Tory amendment to keep the museum in the base budget - said: "How can we possibly attract people from outside to put money in where there is only a 12-month guarantee? If you can't offer them more than 12 months they are not going to do it."

Plans to open up the adjacent Shambles area and to install a cafeteria had now been thrown into doubt, he added.

A traders' body in the town also hit out at the decision. Vice-chairman of the Bewdley Chamber of Trade, Colin Billingham, said: "The town's business community could not survive without the 30,000 visitors plus who came to the museum last year."

Meanwhile, leader of the Tories on the district council, Stephen Clee, said at last Wednesday's budget meeting that it should be one or the other - put the museum in the base budget or cut funding altogether.

"Unless this council withdraws this money completely from the museum we cannot get additional funding," he said. "We are absolutely stumped if this council will not withdraw funding."

Yet indignant councillor Martin said he had explained the arrangements until he was "blue in the face" before the heated two-hour meeting.

He explained: "We have been promised that they will find additional funding.

"If alternative funding is forthcoming we will reduce our subsidy by that amount and that is why it is not shown as being cast in stone in the three-year budget.

"We are trying to be a financially sensible and pragmatic council. Efforts should be made to reduce the council tax commitment - if we can't find the money we will put it back in."

He added: "I want to make it quite clear for councillors who do not understand - or who choose not to understand - that we have safeguarded the long-term future of Bewdley Museum."